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The Heritage Room is located in the Athens-Clarke County library. We collect, preserve, organize, and make accessible resources about the Athens area, the state of Georgia, and the Southeastern United States.
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Sunday, June 27, 2010

On this day, we'd like to remind you about two newsletters from the Heritage Room that you can have delivered to your email Inbox.

Our Genealogy Events newsletter comes out at the end of each month. It includes events in the Athens area and from around Georgia related to historical research, events, people, and places; history- or genealogy-related exhibits and displays; as well as meeting information for area history and genealogy groups.

We will also have a Genealogy Tips newsletter that will be sent every few weeks with news of new resources, programs, or developments in the wider genealogy world.

Simply follow the links above (or click here) to see the current newsletters and sign up today!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

On this day in 1810, the following two notices were published in the Georgia Express newspaper:

Athens, June 23. Married, on Tues. evening last by the Rev. Hope Hull, Mr. Thomas G. Lamar of SC, to Miss Martha L. Cary of this place.

and

Co-partnership Dissolved. The public are hereby informed, that the co-partnership of John Harwood, and Elizabeth, his wife, is this day dissolved by mutual consent; we therefore hereby forbid all persons trusting either of the said firm, on account of the other, on any conditions whatever, as we are determined to pay no debts for each other, from the date hereof.

John Harwood, Jun. Elizabeth Harwood.

Marriage records from this time were short two-line entries handwritten in the marriage book, and were easily lost. There is no record of the marriage of Miss Cary and Mr. Lamar in Clarke County's records.

Miss Cary was possibly a daughter of John Cary, who ran Athens' first hotel starting around 1803, and "housed a number of students before campus lodging became available." It is possible that is how Miss Cary met Mr. Lamar "of SC", as not all students at the early University of Georgia were from Georgia. Starting in 1811, Thomas G. Lamar's name appears on plats for Edgefield, South Carolina, approximately 100 miles from Athens.

The fate of the Harwoods is equally fuzzy. There is a marriage record from 27 October 1795 in Richmond County for John Harwood and Elizabeth Dawson, and they do not seem to have been living in Athens at the time. Divorce was complicated during the early years of the United States, and this sort announcement was an easier and cheaper way of alerting those with whom they might do business that they were no longer a single entity for the purpose of debts.

Despite the public announcement of their separation, five months later, on November 30th, a John Harwood from Richmond County, Georgia was issued a passport by Governor David B. Mitchell "to travel through the Creek Nation of Indians." The passport included "his wife, three children, and eight negroes." To gain a passport at this time, one had to provide character references and promise to behave well while in Creek territory, even though some of the purposes for entering the territory were "to view the country" with plans for later settlement.

One of the earliest mentions of the building came in January of 1889, when the Weekly Banner-Watchman included the new Young Men's Christian Association building "is soon to be erected, and will be one of the prettiest buildings in the city."

Later that year, the Weekly Banner-Watchman described the day the cornerstone was laid for the building, on May 6th, 1889. According to the paper, "fully twelve hundred persons" came to the 3 o'clock ceremony. The "orator of the occasion" was Henry C. Tuck, a local attorney, a member of the Y. M. C. A., and, in 1889, Clarke County's representative to the Georgia Legislature.

He began his address by stating

No building was ever erected in Athens in which the people felt a deeper or more abiding interest than this--certainly none was ever erected before, in which the spirit and purpose of the work has so attracted and seized upon the hearts of the whole people.

The ceremonies had begun with a procession of 60 Y. M. C. A. members to the Masonic Hall, from where they then walked with 70 Masons, members of Mt. Vernon Lodge and visiting members, to the new building. A prayer was read, a choir sang with organ accompaniment, and it is reported that "The singing was remarkably good."

After Mr. Tuck spoke to the crowd, the Masonic ceremonies for laying the cornerstone followed, including the many items to be deposited within the stone. Some of the reported items were:

A list of members of the Y. M. C. A. engraved on a tablet of lead

Constitution and by-laws of the different secret orders in the city

List of subscribers in the Y. M. C. A. building

Various bills of Confederate money

Copies of the Athens Daily and Weekly Chronicle

Copy of the Banner-Watchman containing a profile of Judge Y. L. G. Harris

Today, on the one year anniversary of the fire, the Georgia Theatre has opened an e-Bay store as a way to raise money, with such items as a master tape of Widespread Panic's first studio recording, salvaged posters from the fire, posters from benefit concerts, Band Together bracelets, and pens made from the charred 300-year-old pine beams of the Theatre roof. Other items will be added to the auction site over time.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

On this day in 1914, Mary Dorothy Lyndon of Athens became the first woman to receive a degree from the University of Georgia. She was one of three students in June exercises receiving a Master of Arts degree.

Ms. Lyndon had grown up in Athens, attending public schools. She graduated from Wesleyan College in 1896, stayed to earn a graduate degree in Dramatic Arts in 1897, then returned to Athens to earn a 2-year teaching diploma from the State Normal School in 1901. For a time, she studied Dramatic Art and History at Columbia University in New York before again returning to Athens, where she briefly taught English and Athens High School. In 1911, she took a position teachng history at the Lucy Cobb Institute, which allowed her to take summer classes at the University of Georgia to earn her MA degree.

At the time Ms. Lyndon attended UGA, the school was still officially a male-only institution. The school had conferred an honorary Master of Arts degree on writer and educator Julia Flisch in 1899, but in the same year, the Board of Trustees deleted from their minutes the petition for coeducation at UGA presented to them by the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Colonial Dames, and the Georgia Federation of Women's Clubs. In 1911, the Trustees allowed women to earn Master of Arts degrees from credits accumulated during summer school only, "on the pretext that enrollment in summer school did not constitute formal admission to the university."

Two years after Ms. Lyndon was awarded her MA degree, Chancellor David C. Barrow asked the legislature to allow women to attend regular sessions of the graduate school. The Trustees balked at the notion of women officially on campus, and Chancellor Barrow looked the other way while professors instructed female students privately to earn credits they could, with a letter of recommendation, transfer to other schools in the United States.

World War I changed the political landscape for coeducation. President Andrew Soule of the Agriculture College, a strong advocate for admitting women into the University, was made Georgia's Federal Food Administrator and Regional Chairman for five southern states. He used his position to push to allow women into the College of Agriculture to become nutritionists, using the patriotic argument that educating women would be "another form of conservation" during the war. The resolution passed an interim committee of Trustees, and that fall, the Department of Home Economics opened with Mary E. Creswell as the Dean and 46 students in the program.

The following year, in 1919, the Trustees recommended that "a woman be elected Associate Professor of Education and also be made Dean of Women." Chancellor Barrow offered these positions to Ms. Lyndon, for she "possessed of an equitable disposition, a keen intelligence, boundless energy, and a love and sympathy for young people."

While Dean, Ms. Lyndon started the Pioneer Club, directed the coeducational Thaliana Dramatic Club, started women's basketball and rifle teams, and oversaw the establishment in 1921 of the first sorority on campus, Phi Mu, of which she had been a member at Wesleyan. Her career came to an abrupt end when she was stricken with a fatal bout of pneumonia while visiting cousins in Washington, Georgia. Mary Lyndon was only 46 years old.

Monday, June 14, 2010

On this day in 1936, Mary Frances Early was born in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1962, she became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Georgia.

Ms. Early earned her undergraduate degree in Music Education from Clark College, later Clark Atlanta University, in 1957. After teaching music, band, and choir in the Atlanta public schools, she went to the University of Michigan to pursue a Master's degree in Music Education. Three days after seeing newsreel of the riot outside Charlayne Hunter's dormitory in January, 1961, she decided to apply to UGA to finish her degree.

The process to enter UGA took extra effort by Ms. Early, who overcame barriers not typically encountered by most students. To certify her residence, the school sent her a form that required not just the signature of a Superior Court Justice, but also two University alumni. Though the school is usually responsible for scheduling entrance interviews, no one at the University would call her, so she had to set up interview times herself. At the interview, she was asked a variety of inappropriate questions, including if she had ever been a prostitute. Years later, she learned that her entire family had been investigated for criminal or deviant behavior in hope of finding an excuse to deny her admission to UGA, and that Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes had similar investigative files.

Ms. Early insisted on transferring to UGA despite her treatment during the application process and the threat that she could lose all her UM credits, and was accepted for Summer Quarter, 1961, one month before classes began. Her Michigan credits were accepted by the University. When she arrived on campus, both Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter had gone home for the summer term, so she was the only African-American student on campus. She was assigned to live in Ms. Hunter's room in a freshman dormitory, and was thus isolated both by her race and her age difference from those around her. She joined the chorus, becoming the first African-American student involved in extracurricular activities at UGA, but always had to have her own music because none of the other chorus members would share a sheet with her, as was customary. Her family was not permitted to come to campus to see choral concerts because, her dean told her, UGA was only integrated for students.

During her time at UGA, student harrassment took the form of having lemons thrown at her back by the football team in the dining hall, name calling, vandalism to her car, and students linking arms in front of the entry to the library to keep her from entering the building. Staff harrassment included being asked, daily, to show her UGA ID to prove she was a University student before being served in places like the dining hall or campus snack bar. Even years later, Ms. Early told an interviewer, "It's still hard for me to understand how people could be so cruel to another human being."

In her last terms at UGA, Ms. Early lived with Ms. Hunter in the freshman dormitory, in a room with a kitchenette and private bathroom that was intended for a counselor . Though she often ate alone in the dining hall, she had a general sense that many of the other students did not dislike her so much as were concerned about what being seen with her could do to their social standing. Several of the freshmen in her dormitory had said the sororities they were rushing had warned them about socializing with Ms. Hunter and her.

After her graduation in 1962, Ms. Early received a letter of congratulations from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. telling her, "You have done a superb job, and brought the State of Georgia closer to the American dream." Over the years, she has taught music and planned curricula for the Atlanta Public School System, advised the Macmillan textbook company, and worked with the National Endowment of the Arts. In 1980, she became the first African-American president of the Georgia Music Educators Association. After she retired from the Atlanta Public Schools in 1994, she taught music courses at Spelman and Morehouse Colleges, and later spent several years as the Chair of the Music Department at her alma mater, Clark Atlanta University. She retired in 2005.

Ms. Early was the commencement speaker for the graduate school's 2007 spring exercises, where she told the graduates that "Education also embraces the understanding and acceptance of, and respect for, all people," and how through "time and the tremendous efforts by many people here ... I now feel a part of UGA, and am happy to count myself among the many thousand active alumni."

Saturday, June 12, 2010

On this day in 1913, "impressive exercises at the chapel of the University of Georgia and ... a subsequent brilliant reception in the new building on campus" marked the opening of Peabody Hall and the new Peabody School of Education. Among those making remarks at the chapel were Dean T. J. Woofter, the new dean of the school, Chancellor David C. Barrow, former Governor Henry D. McDaniel, and Dr. H. H. Horne of the New York School of Pedagogy.

The Athens Banner noted that while the Universities in Mississippi and North Carolina were also working on Peabody Halls, the one in Georgia was the first to be completed. All three buildings were funded by a grant from the Peabody Education Fund, created in the aftermath of the Civil War by financier and philanthropist George Peabody to promote education and teacher training in the South for all people, regardless of race. He put a total of $3.5 million into the fund between 1866 and 1869.

Over the years, the Peabody Education Fund gave $2,175.00 to the State Normal School here in Athens, and created the Peabody School for Teachers in Nashville, which later became part of Vanderbilt University. Money was distributed from the fund for schools and libraries throughout the South to prepare and train professional educators.

This George Peabody is not the one with the famous media award. In Georgia, especially, this shared name with another great philanthropist from New England has obscured the work the first George Peabody. This older George Peabody was born in South Danvers, Massachusetts in 1795 to a poor family. He started working at age 11 as a clerk in a grocery store, and at 19, moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue the dry goods business. He moved to London in 1837, and began his career in finance, where he was extraordinarily successful, amassing a fortune of more than $20 million.

At a time when grand philanthropy was not common among the wealthy classes, Peabody began to give away his fortune. He funded the American exhibit for the International Exhibition of 1951 in London after Congress failed to appropriate funds for the venture. In Baltimore, where he had spent many years of his youth establishing his business, he created the Peabody Institute for the city, which included "a free library, courses of lectures, an academy of music, gallery of art, and accomodations for the Maryland Historical Society."

In 1862, Peabody spent over $2.5 million on housing for the poor in London, building more than 40,000 housing units in order "to ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of this great metropolis." When offered a barony by Queen Victoria, he turned it down, saying a letter of appreciation would be honor enough, though in July of 1869, the Prince of Wales presided over a dedication ceremony of a statue of Peabody that still stands today outside the London Royal Exchange.

He is quoted as saying, "From a comparatively early period of my commercial life, I had resolved in my own mind that, should my labors be blessed with success, I would devote a portion of the property thus acquired to promote the intellectual, moral and physical welfare and comfort of my fellow-man."

Peabody died in London in November, 1869, after months of declining health. His funeral was held at Westminster Abbey, and his body returned to America early the next year aboard the HMS Monarch and accompanied by French and American warships. His birthplace home has been turned into the George Peabody Museum, and the Peabody Group continues to work toward making London "a city of opportunity for all."

Friday, June 11, 2010

On this day, we'd like you to mark you calendar for a program in the Library Auditorium on Saturday, June 19th, 2010, at 2:oo p.m. that will help you have more productive and useful visits to libraries and archives.

Our Heritage Room Librarian, Laura W. Carter, will provide you with tips and advice for the necessary sojourns to archives, libraries, and courthouses that are part of doing historical research. Starting with the most basic advice, that you know what information you are trying to find before you arrive, Ms. Carter will explain how to get the maximum benefit from your research trips, and how to phrase questions in a way that enable librarians and archivists to help you.

Monday, June 7, 2010

On this day in 1907, the Athens City Council met at 8:00 p.m. and passed the following Ordinance:

Section I.

Be it Ordained by the Mayor and Council of the City of Athens, and it is hereby Ordained by the authority of the same, that a portion of the sidewalk on Hancock Ave. to wit:

All that portion of the sidewalk lying on the North side of Hancock Ave. between the intersection of said Hancock Ave. and Church St. on the East and said Hancock Ave. and Harris St. on the West, all of which is without the fire limits of the City of Athens, but is a continuation of the sidewalk on the North side of said Hancock Ave., which is paved and which leads as so paved from within the fire limits of the city of Athens, be and the same, is hereby Ordained to be paved, curbed, and otherwise improved in the following manner to wit:

Section II.

The paving and other improvements of that portion of the sidewalk on Hancock Ave. hereby ordained to be made shall commence at the intersection of Church and Hancock Ave. streets, at the termination of the paved sidewalk on the North side of said Hancock Ave. and continue thence along Hancock Ave, and on the North side thereof, to the intersection of said Hancock Avenue with Harris St.

Section III.

That the portion of the sidewalk on the North side of Hancock Ave. as heretofore designated in this Ordinance, shall be paved to a distance of five feet in width between the curb line with first class hard brick, which brick shall be laid flat on a sand surface or bed of not less than two inches in depth; that the brick shall be of uniform thickness and shall be laid smooth and in a substantial manner, and shall have all cracks and crevices between them thoroughly closed and filled with sand filling.

Section IV.

That said brick paving when so laid shall be curbed on each side and end with brick of the same class and character as that used in laying the pavement, which shall be placed on end along both the outer edges of said paved surface and across the ends thereof, thereby holding in place and securing the said pavement and forming a substantial curb for the same.

The rest of the sections of the ordinance discussed how the brick sidewalk would be paid for, in part by the city, but also in part by the residents along Hancock Avenue whose property abutted the new sidewalk. The home and business owners were also responsible for some maintenance of the sidewalks, including pulling weeds and keeping the path clear for pedestrians.

The residents who lived on Hancock Avenue apparently took care of their sidewalks, because they are still in use today, thanks to a restoration project by the Athens-Clarke County Public Works Department. Almost exactly 103 years after the City Council passed the ordinance to create them, on June 8, 2009, the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation gave an Outstanding Restoration Award (pdf) to the Public Works Department for their on-going work to restore these brick sidewalks along Hancock Avenue and Reese Street.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

On this day in 1939, the Athens Banner-Herald alerted the public to the different programs and areas set up at the Athens-Clarke County Public Library for their summer Vacation Reading Club.

The overall theme was "A World's Fair in Books," building on the national interest in the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Different areas of the library were set up with different areas of emphasis, such as "The Palace of Enchantment" where books of fairy tales and myths were available, and "The Home of Modern Youth" for juvenile fiction.

One could also visit "The House of Earth" for semi-fiction, the "Gallery of Famous Persons" for biographies and memoirs, and "'The Children's Playhouse' for little tots." Groups interested in "visiting" a foreign country could sign up for their own program to be provided by the librarians, and a clipping club would be sponsored once 10 people registered.

Students who registered in the Vacation Reading Club, read 10 approved books, and made written or oral reports about those books, would receive proof of their summer accomplishments to bring their teachers in the fall. Those who read 25 approved books would also receive "a gold star certificate."

Teens can participate in the Making Waves @Your Library programs, where they can win a tshirt and invitation to an End of Summer Party for reading 10 books, enter the art contest and Teen Film Festival, and attend workshops covering music, movies, bellydancing, and crafts such as Duct Tape Craft on June 17th.

The Adult program, Explore Your Community @Your Library, includes online scavenger hunts, opportunities to submit your photographs of Athens for a library exhibit, programs to help you find books you'll love (June 9th) or start your own book club (July 8th), and drawings each week for a prize from area businesses, with a grand prize at the end of July. Each book you read acts as an entry form.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

On this day, we'd like to invite you to register for Genealogy on the Internet. This free class will be held on Thursday June 17th, 2010, from 6:00-8:30pm in the Educational Technology Center upstairs at the Athens-Clarke County Library.

The class is an introduction to the many growing resources for researching your family history online, and includes handouts that provide descriptions of the various sites available and their offerings. Time for exploring web pages and asking questions is included as part of the session. These resources are not limited to Georgia or even the United States!

This course is not intended for beginners in genealogy or computers. Space is limited, so registration is required. Please stop by the Heritage Room, email us, or phone (706)613-3650, ext. 350 to sign up for the class. We hope to see you there!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

On this day in 1923, the Athens Banner-Herald reported that "Bright skies Friday indicated a large crowd at the Curb Market Saturday morning."

Potatoes, cherries, peaches, and beans were starting to "come in," and the paper reported that "the number of chickens brought to the market is increasing each day." The previous Tuesday, 65 chickens were brought from Oconee County, "where the farmers have organized a Co-operative Poultry Association."

Also available at the Broad Street market on Saturday would be turnips, turnip salad, potatoes, onions, English peas, hams, eggs, butter, "and other produce ...at reasonable prices." According to the paper, "The cabbage crop this year around Athens is fine and the vegetable brought to the Curb Market is very attractive."

The article also reported

Strawberries have about disappeared although two or three producers continue to bring them in and experience no trouble in disposing of them. Many Athens women want to preserve strawberries and buy several gallons each week for that purpose.

It is interesting to note the change in the condition of the products brought to Athens since the establishment of the Curb Market. Formerly most of the food crops brought to Athens were not selected and neatly packed and therefore could not command a good price.

Since the Curb Market began operation many farmers have learned from their neighbors who brought graded produce that they always sell out before those who did not pay much attention to the condition of the articles offered for sale. One man declared a few days ago the Curb Market has proved in a short while what the Agricultural College has been "preaching for fifteen years"--the necessity of grading products and packaging them neatly.

Prices for items at the market were given on the paper's "market page," which also included prices for items at stores such as Piggly Wiggly ("Fancy Groceries at Lowest Prices" included a quart of snap beans for 4 1/2 cents), The Wier Grocery Company (a 5-pound cloth bag of sugar cost 55 cents), King-Hodgson Company (1/2-pound can of Hersey's cocoa for 20 cents), and Combination Store Produce Department (Georgia string beans for 25 cents per gallon).